I FIRST want to say that this post is a reflection of my personal beliefs which happen to be influenced by MY spiritual relationship with God. It is my prayer that the reader(s) of this respects my views if there happens to be disagreement with the following statements I make. We are all different and nothing can be perceived perfectly. This blog will be broken down in two parts, the FIRST will be my story & the second will be the message I have for followers of Christ.
THE TESTIMONY:
As a child my parents raised me to believe in Christ, they took me to church, they taught me how to pray, praise, & fellowship, I was directed to read the bible, & through all of this embedded in me was the culture of what it is to be a Christian amongst Christians ... on SUNDAY. Monday - Saturday I learned what it was to be a Christian outside of church, I learned that WE go to church because we need a healing, we were imperfect, we born into sin, & as a child those things translated into we were "bad" & in order to not be bad I needed to accept Jesus as my Lord & savior and be SAVED. I'll never forget the time when my parents were urging me to be baptized. I personally wanted to wait because I didn't believe I was saved yet, God had never spoken to me, I had never been moved by him, I still didn't understand the logic of God & Jesus being ONE because they said Jesus was his son... Oh and the Holy Spirit was like Casper the friendly Ghost in my eyes but I was getting older & I wanted to honor my mother and father so I was baptized. After my baptism I felt great, THAT DAY. Realistically I was still a little girl who hadn't even had her first period yet, still thought boys had coodies, and didn't know that any other religion other than Catholic exsisted (and I thought all Catholics were just like Baptist Christians but white people, haha.) Fast Forward to my teen years when I actually was mature enough to LISTEN in church, I heard a lot of sermons that were 80% telling us everything we are doing wrong and warning us about being condemned to hell and 20% of the sermon was from the bible. Now, not only am I feeling the pressure of adolescence (boys, vanity, popularity) but I'm scared to talk to God & I fear going to hell more than being excited that one day I'll make it to heaven. I didn't LIKE how church made me feel. As a result of the church experiences that haunted me, I left the church when my parents could no longer tell me what to do and I grew into a young adult who prayed fearfully and cried constantly repenting for doing things that came naturally to me, I realized I was a sinner. I feared that although I was baptized, I read the bible, I believed, & I repented for my sins that somehow I could still end up in hell because I would never be good enough. Christians were always there with their non comfort and judgment when you did something wrong so I learned to keep secrets & to lie because I didn't want to dissapoint them, not knowing that those very people who seem to always have a word for the life of others had secrets too & told lies... Years later when the hypocrisy of it all had been made clear and the similarity of ALL people was exposed, I met people of many other religions/lifestyles & I no longer feared death but believed death for a child of God is the reward for fufiing your purpose on earth. I communicated with God outside of just prayer & God started to make his presence more and more known to me. I was still sinning something terrible (college years... I'm sure YOU all remember those years) however I was developing a spiritual relationship with God outside of church and my concious kicked in (the beginning of discernment) & because HE knew that nobody from my past could lead me to church but that's what I needed he placed a woman in my life who became my mentor. How this woman and I met would be another post, but she was the FIRST Christian I had met that saw my "ugly" and never said ONE discouraging thing to me. She never mentioned me going to hell, she SHARED stories of her past with me and explained the LOVE God had for all of us despite what we've done and more than anything when I did something right she glorified me! Her acknowledging me for my right doings made me want to do more right because her silence was the equivelant of a rainy day and I desired the light of happiness more than the loneliness of darkness. She led me back to church & I started sharing for once my LOVE of God! Eventually I FELT truly saved (and I wasn't yet in the eyes of Christians) I knew this because in order to join the ministry of this church I would have to not drink, smoke, shack up... You know all the things most of us have once done in our lifetime. And at the time although the church I was attending didn't turn out to be quite the fit for me because that application made me feel the same inadequence I felt as a child in church she STILL loved me and when I think of Christianity I think of her leading by example & love because to her it doesn't matter where I worship as long as I worship & she had faith that GOD would work on me all she had to do is love me. I know that story was lengthy BUT I said all of that to work up to my message which is LEADING BY LOVE.
THE MESSAGE:
Did YOU know? A Christian who makes it their business to magnify a sinners sin, or act as if through their personal relationship with God they have attained the right to order the steps of others does more to turn people off from God & church than lead them to it? Remember the things you've done in the darkness while exalting him in the light before you break down the terms of what being "saved" is or is not, we all felt the embarrassment of feeling like the preacher was talking to US. Part of being a Christan is being tested, failing sometimes, learning, & literally giving life to the phrase that "there is no testimony without the test" and guess what? We are never done testing until we are resting at least I'm not. Like anything else in order for things to manifest we must SPEAK it. So when I see people posting or preaching about HOW God wants people to be, how people who believe in Jesus should or shouldn't act, & mocking the level of where people who exhault his name are at I immediately feel pitty for the one "condemning" more than the one that "should be" condemned. A persons habits & immaturity doesn't take away from THEIR personal relationship with God so if one minute they are posting about the goodness of God and the next they are cursing people out remember they are still being tested and you were not always where you were. The fact that they KNOW God is a blessing and organically they will change because GOD is in control. If instead of criticizing we celebrated EVERY time the Lords name was mentioned, perhaps people would want to say it more & live it more. We must learn to mind our business, turn our cheek to the small immature things and GIVE LOVE and represent The Lord by being that example, and it takes not a finger pointed to do so. I'm guilty of judging & I believe we subconsciously all do but I'm not going to verbally discredit a persons belief because they are growing in Godliness. I won't acknowledge them when they do bad, that does more. If we are ALL imperfect what good is it to point out specific imperfections of others as if our sin is less than theirs. Let's be encouraged to lead by LOVE.
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